University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.
In which Robin Day is carried to Cuba, and made acquainted
with the tender mercies of pirate law and Captain Hellcat.

The capture, the murder, the proposal of Brown
for a cruise and its acceptance, were altogether the
work of but a few minutes. A few more served, at
Brown's orders, to transfer from the Jumping Jenny
to the schooner every thing of value which the
former contained, the sails, stores, and arms, and
especially the eighteen-pounder, which was swung
up from the hold and received on board the schooner
with acclamations, as the herald and author of many
a future victory. All being at last taken from her,
the Jumping Jenny was cut loose, after being first
set on fire; the bodies of the murdered mariners
were thrown overboard; and the schooner, which
we soon discovered had on her stern the name of
the Moro, or Moor, of Havana, bore away to the
South West, leaving the sloop to burn, and the Querida
to follow us, if she could.

A search was now instituted throughout the Moro,
and it was soon found that she had on board a cargo of
military stores for the garrison at Pensacola; a happy
circumstance for the new-made pirates, for the
Jumping Jenny was but badly provisioned, and the
Intendant had taken the precaution to remove from
her nearly all the gunpowder, as well as some of

the small arms, so that the followers of Captain
Brown, but for this discovery, would have been as
badly armed as they were provisioned for the intended
cruise. There was found, also, a good store
of liquors on board; a discovery that completed the
exultation of the commander, who immediately ordered
a cask of brandy to be broached, and treated
his crew to a rouse, drinking, himself, several deep
potations with all the gusto of one who enjoyed, and
had long been denied the luxury.

This completed the conversion of his proselytes,
or of all who were convertible: the Spaniards uttered
many vivas in honour of El Capitan Gato, who,
they protested, was the greatest man that ever sailed
the sea; the Englishmen shook hands again, and
swore they cared not a fig for gallows and yard-arms;
the negroes fell to singing and quarreling;
and one of the Bloody Volunteers declared, “he
would not object to a little pirating, if he could do
it on dry land, because, by George”—and finished
the rest of his speech over the side of the vessel.
Even Captain Hellcat became a little glorious, and
expatiated upon the pleasures and advantages of a
freebooter's life, robbing and murdering at will;
“he had tried the land, d—n his blood, in every
way he could take it; he had swindled and cheated;
robbed houses and niggur-traders; taken scalps, and
three wives among the Indians; cut thief-takers'
throats and play'd the quack-doctor; but after all,
blast him, it was nothing; the sea was the only place
for a jolly dog, a freebooter's life the only life for a
gentleman and man of honour.”

“And, talking of honour, sink me,” said he, suddenly
turning his eye upon Skipper Duck, who was
serving out grog from the cask, “I have just to inform
you, my young hellcats, that a pirate must be

a man of honour as well as another. He that betrays
his messmate to the harpies on shore, is a rascal,
and a knife in the gizzard is too good for him.”

And with that, reminding the unfortunate Skipper
that he had played the traitor at Norfolk, and assuring
him that he spared his life only because of his acting
with good faith, and playing so important a part, in
the escape from Pensacola, he ordered him to be tied
up and punished with five hundred lashes.

The astounded skipper was immediately seized
upon by the sailors and Spaniards, who seemed indignant
at his perfidy, and eager to prove their zeal
to the commander; and, nothwitstanding his remonstrances,
which soon changed to pleadings and
beseechings, the punishment was inflicted with a
scourge hastily constructed of knotted ropeyarns,
and placed in the hands of the negroes, ten of whom
were ordered to administer each fifty lashes on his
naked back, and to administer them well, which
they did.

It cannot be supposed that I, who had such cause
to hate him, should grieve for any misfortune that
could happen to Skipper Duck; but the atrocity, the
horrible severity of the punishment, which appeared
to me only a more brutal murder than any I had
witnessed, awoke emotions that were akin to pity;
and perceiving the poor wretch had fainted before
more than half the number of stripes had been inflicted,
I presumed to beg Captain Brown not to
carry the punishment further, assuring him the man
would die under it. All the answer I got was, that
“he might die and be d—d,” and an injunction to
mind my own business; and when the bloody business
was over, and Duck, at last untied, fell like a
dead man on the deck, he very coolly ordered the
negroes to “throw the carcass overboard.”

I interfered again; and having felt the poor fellow's
pulse, said he was not yet dead; upon which
Hellcat swore I was a doctor, and I should be the
ship's doctor, now he thought of it, and so directed
me to take him in hand and cure him. I said I
should be happy to do all I could for him; but asked
what I was to do for remedies? “Oh!” said the
unfeeling villain, “give him some holly-golly-wow!”
and then left me, after a great horse-laugh,
to solve the difficulty as I could.

Fortunately, there was soon after discovered
among the stores of the Moro, a large chest of drugs,
that was doubtless intended for hospital service at
Pensacola; so that I had the means of trying my
skill, though I had but little confidence it would
recover the skipper from the effects of so dreadful
a flogging. I had him carried below, where I
established him as comfortably as I could, dressed
his wounds to the best of my ability, and had the
satisfaction, in about an hour, of seeing him open
his eyes, and restored, though it was but for a little
while, to consciousness. He seemed surprised to
find me administering to him, and was struck with a
sudden remorse for the wrongs he had done me; for
he begged me wildly to forgive him, and, still more
wildly, said he could reward me for my goodness,
and would do so, if he lived; and then he declared
he would have vengeance on Brown, whom he said
he could hang, and would too, if he had to hang
beside him. The ferment of his spirits, added to
the anguish of his wounds, presently threw him
into a delirium, in which condition, indeed, with
occasional, and very imperfect intervals of consciousness,
as I may here say, he remained for
more than two weeks, in which it was my grief to
be in attendance upon him.

In the meanwhile, Captain Brown, though indulging
in a brief carouse, omitted nothing necessary
to secure his escape from the Querida, which
was seen to sail towards the burning sloop, and
then alter her course to pursue us; though it
was by and by seen that she was gradually falling
behind us; which, as it was said she was a very fast
vessel, was considered a proof that the Moro was
no mean sailer. Something was, however, allowed
for the hurry with which the Querida had been
fitted out, and, perhaps imperfectly, to pursue us;
and Captain Hellcat himself said, he would be very
willing to make an exchange of vessels, and give,
as he added, all the negroes to boot. Long before
night, we had lost sight of her entirely; and then
our course was altered, and I understood from the
Spaniards that we were bound, not to Barrataria, as
I had supposed, but to some other haunt of pirates
on the coast of Cuba.

And there we arrived upon the fifth day of our
voyage; during which the appearance of the schooner
was altered by paint and other devices, and her
name changed from Moro, to Vibora, or Viper; a
much more appropriate title for a thing so full of
treachery and venomous hostility against all mankind.
During this period, Brown had converted
her into a pirate in earnest, and thoroughly organized
his crew, appointing for his lieutenant (for he was
now content to dub me his doctor,) the ferocious
fellow who had threatened to eat my soul at Pensacola,
and who was the most worthy of the honour,
although no sailor; because next to Brown himself,
the most devilish spirit on board. This worthy assumed
to himself the name of Gatito, or the Kitten;
but upon Captain Brown bestowing the same title
upon his followers in general, the lieutenant signified

his will to sail for the future under the name of
Diablillo, or the Little Devil, the diminutive addition
being expressive merely of his modesty; for he
was a man nearly six feet high, and robust in proportion.

We arrived upon the coast of Cuba without difficulty
or accident, but, alas, not without further
bloodshed; for upon the fourth day of the voyage,
meeting a British schooner, supposed to be from
Jamaica, our captain, in a fit of drunken valour, (for,
indeed, he was seldom entirely sober,) determined
to attack her, although she was armed with two
guns, and seemed not at all afraid of us. She made,
in fact, a vigorous resistance, and fired a shot through
us, by which one man was killed and three wounded,
being struck by splinters; but a ball from long-tom,
striking her between wind and water, avenged the
injury; and five minutes afterwards she went down,
her crew, in the meanwhile making signals of surrender
and distress, which no one regarded. As
long as she remained above water, we continued to
fire at her; and finally bore away, leaving three or
four miserable wretches, who were seen floating on
the sea, clinging to planks and spars, to the mercy
of the waves and sharks, of which there are always
great numbers basking about in the tropical regions
of the gulf.

The next day, we came in sight of the highlands
of Cuba, near its western cape, and entered an out-of-the-way
harbour; where, however, a number of
Spaniards soon made their appearance on board the
schooner, seeming very glad to see El Capitan Gato,
whom they hailed as an old acquaintance. And
here El Capitan Gato, to the great astonishment and
affliction of this portion of his followers, immediately
put up for sale the thirteen negroes, and they fetched

a very good price; which Captain Brown assured
them, by way of consolation, was the only thing
according to his way of thinking, that a negro was
good for. Their place was supplied more advantageously
for his purposes, by fifteen cut-throat islanders,
selected from a number who begged the honour
of making their fortunes under his diabolical auspices;
and, truly, they approved themselves, in the end,
worthy of their leader.

We remained here but two days; during which
Captain Hellcat had an opportunity of establishing
his authority by a second act of punishment inflicted
upon a faithless follower, and proved the justice of
the remark with which he adjudged it, that “one
had better walk into h—ll with a bomb-shell hung
round his neck, than attempt foul play with him.”
It seemed that the Bloody Volunteers, not yet enamoured
of the free life of the sea, and very desirous
to make their escape from the Viper, had laid a plan
for effecting their purpose, as soon as we entered the
harbour. It was resolved, that if any one should
have the good fortune to get ashore, he should proceed
in search of a magistrate, and inform him of
the true character of the Viper; for, poor fellows, they
had no thought but that we were in the harbour under
false colours, fancying that all the visiters of the
schooner were made to believe she was an honest
trader. The public authorities, or any good citizens,
informed she was a pirate, they had no doubt she
would be immediately seized, the murderous Brown
and his voluntary followers conducted to the gallows,
and themselves liberated. The attempt was made
by one, who was allowed to accompany Brown to
the shore, and succeeded so well in his enterprise,
that, in less than an hour after he had been first
missed, he was brought back to the schooner by

the honest people of the harbour, to whom, or to
one of them, who could speak English, he had told
his story. “Very well,” quoth Brown, making use
of the language I have chronicled above; adding,
with horrible oaths, that “since he was so eager to
make his way to the sharks, he would help him to
them; but they should be water-sharks, sink him, and
not land-sharks.” And the poor wretch was immediately
bound by the arms and let down into the sea
from the bow of the vessel, where he was presently
surrounded by these tigers of the deep, and at last
set upon by them, and devoured before our eyes.

With all my fear of Brown, my horror at such
barbarity gave me courage to interfere, to intercede
for the poor fellow's life; but Brown, who
was more intoxicated, as well as more devilish than
usual, caught up a cutlass, and drove me below, to
“do my own butchering,” as he called it—that is,
to attend to the wounded men, who, as well as Duck,
had been consigned to my chirurgical care.